"Elementary" and "Last Resort": Darlings of TV critics

(CBS News) TV viewers tonight will be faced with a choice between "Elementary," a drama that draws on the past, and "Last Resort," a series rooted firmly in the present.

Both have won generally favorable reviews for their pilots and early episodes.

Tim Goodman ofThe Hollywood Reporterhas called "Elementary," which debuts at 10 p.m. ET on CBS,"one of the most promising dramas this fall season."

It takes the oft-told "Sherlock Holmes" story and sets it in present-day New York with Holmes as a recovering drug addict and Watson as disgraced surgeon who's signed on as Holmes' sober-companion.

If you are seeing romance here, you may be disappointed. "Charlie's Angels" actress Lucy Liu, who plays Watson, told CBS News, "I think there's chemistry between us, but we're not going to go in that direction."

She described the relationship between her character and Miller's as more like a "bromance."

The show's creator, Rob Doherty, is an avid Arthur Conan Doyle fan and says he sees pieces of Sherlock Holmes in many of the crime shows on TV. Doherty told TV journalists this summer that his Holmes will have an addictive personality - hooked on not just the drugs mentioned in the mystery novels, but also addicted to puzzles and their solutions.

On the other end of the spectrum is "Last Resort," airing at 10 p.m. ET on ABC, which has been described as something of a cross between "Lost" and "Homeland."

Andre Braugher plays a submarine commander ordered to fire nuclear weapons at Pakistan. When he and his crew question the legitimacy of the commands (because they come over a channel only to be used if the government is overturned) , they find themselves the target of friendly fire. They surface and take their damaged submarine to a remote Pacific Island that once was home to a NATO tracking station. Here, they hope to find out what has happened to the world and plot their next course.